Hope
by conchepcion
Summary: She wasn't violent. Set 'after' 'The Sign of Three'.


**A/N:** I was bound to do this after 'The sign of three'. Perhaps there will be a second part to this.

* * *

She wasn't violent.

The closest to a violent episode she'd ever had was when she'd manage to accidentally rip off her best friend Julia's silver necklace when she was about nine, and they were play-fighting at best (though it turned rather serious at that, damaged jewellery and all).

She had never stabbed someone with a plastic fork, nonetheless a fork, as there didn't regularly turn up reasons to do so after all.

She wasn't violent in nature, and the only things she cut in daily life or maimed or injured in any way were 'food' or 'bodies'. The latter being due to her job – a brain here or an arm there was nothing to her after all. And it had comforted her for quite some time that Tom had never really had a problem with that, "So, you're like CSI-then?" he'd said wide-eyed and enthusiastic, when she'd first mentioned her job, shyly wondering if she'd manage to scare him off, but then he proceeded to ask her a ludicrous amount of questions regarding her 'job'.

The fact that she texted Mycroft Holmes not long after, getting a quick reply in return, _'Background check is clean, I do keep an eye on my brother's…friends."_ was perhaps a bit paranoid, but she didn't want to have another incident of her boyfriend turning into some villain (he seemed a bit _too_ keen).

It wasn't like she believed that everyone who fancied her were sociopaths, as one of those sociopaths didn't in fact…_fancy_ her that was.

After all the _man_ had after playing a beautiful composition of his own, proceeded to throw his corsage at the maid of honour. She had literally felt her entire face fall at that, though she managed to salvage the pieces quite quickly, or at least she had tried.

The real problem, and she knew it was, was how fast she found Tom after that. She had tried her best to distance herself from him after the _meat dagger_, and his other idiotic comments, but right there she needed him.

This was exactly the problem.

Molly knew that the problems had started quite early. Actually they'd been going on for some months, and were on a man's sudden uprising from the 'dead'. She had received question upon question about her involvement, "How did he do it?" he'd asked her, and she hadn't felt terribly interested to enlighten him.

In fact she didn't wish to tell him anything, feeling as he wouldn't understand half of it, but of course she gave Tom credit.

He was nice really, properly nice, and she should be with a nice man after all. He had asked her to marry him, her engagement ring a constant reminder, and one that she'd been fiddling with all day, before and after the wedding.

She had excused her sudden intake of three glasses of wine on the fact that she'd been delighted with the wedding, instead of the fact that Sherlock was standing with the bridesmaid.

Tom had been worried, until she distracted him by almost attempting to eat his face, feeling the touch of his lips against hers, but he seemed almost embarrassed by it. And finally eating actual food luckily grounded her, making her docile, but – 'a fork'.

She wasn't violent, the least violent of people she knew, and yet she had stabbed Tom in the hand with the fork without a second thought. Instead of apologising like any other person would have she avoided him, like it was his fault for pointing at something that anyone else would have thought hadn't they actually known the man himself, but then again _did_ she in fact properly know him? Yes, she helped him with stag night, and with his death, and with 'everything', but did that mean…

Yes.

Yes, it did.

She had kept dancing when she saw him slink out, disappearing into the night like a spectre, as if he'd never been at the party.

No one else seemed to notice that he'd left, but she didn't feel like chasing him. In fact she couldn't chase him, because there was a heavy weight pressing on her hand.

He didn't love her, obviously he didn't, and he was never ever going to marry. He might have returned and changed, but it didn't mean…"Are you alright?" asked Tom amidst the dance floor, while she struggled for breath.

"I need some air," she shouted, the tears building up in her eyes, as she bounded for the outside taking in the rather cold evening.

She stood taking large breaths, ingesting the air desperately, as she knew the problem wasn't Tom…"You okay?" said a voice, and she was surprised to find Mary _Watson_ outside in the cold with her, "It's a bit nippy tonight, saw you pop out, thought I might say hello, so…you okay?"

"Yeah," said Molly picking up the grin she'd been wearing earlier, "Lovely."

"You're terrible at fibbing…so…is it Tom?"

Molly shook her head, her lower lip trembling.

"Possibly that impossible best man?" continued Mary, "Who my best friend actually isn't at all interested in by the way, and who in return didn't exactly feel like he'd return those kind of feelings-,"

"To anyone," finished Molly off with a sigh, her hands on her hips.

"That's a bit dramatic," said Mary with a crinkle of her nose, causing Molly to look at her in surprise.

"What?"

"Well…ok…so domestic life might not be entirely normal with him, but there's always hope."

Molly found herself laughing at that, "There's been…_hope_ for years," she said stifling a sniffle, "I can't wait forever."

"If you know he's the right man, then you do, because if he isn't – then you won't. It's as easy as that, and you're supposed to be moving on, aren't you? Obviously you've properly moved on, standing here crying because he's left the party."

Molly didn't know what to say, "You're not the only one who notices things – since it's a bit difficult not seeing you staring at him -," said Mary.

She felt redness crawl into her cheeks, heating them up with shame, "It's just been so difficult since he came back, and I sort of hoped I'd gotten over him."

"A man can be buried, but doesn't mean your feelings will remain buried as well," said Mary with a slight frown clasping Molly's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze, "Don't rush into something because you think it's the way to go round with things, since you should never ever settle – I didn't."

* * *

Mary smugly settled into her husband's lap, letting him hold her to him tightly, as he whispered pleasant nothings in her ear (slightly slurred, of course). In the distance she caught sight of Molly Hooper having a rather serious conversation with Tom, and knew quite instinctively that the woman was having a 'breaking-up conversation'.

"Sherlock's left, then?" said John who finally caught on his friends disappearance, "Not like I'm surprised. He's rubbish at these things…proved that on his own earlier."

Mary didn't give the comment that kept gnawing on the inside of her mouth, as she knew John knowing would just scare the man off.

If she hadn't been looking for it she would never have caught Sherlock _'looking, when Molly wasn't'._


End file.
